Oklahoma's Own In Focus: Tulsa nonprofits concerned about potential freeze on federal grants

On Tuesday, a White House executive order was sent out via memo, mandating federal agencies to suspend all federal financial assistance, including federal grants and loans.

This announcement from the Trump administration placed Oklahoma organizations that rely on federal funding in a state of uncertainty.

The funding freeze, which was scheduled to take effect on Tuesday at 4 p.m. Central Time, has since been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

Chris Bernard, CEO of Hunger Free Oklahoma

Q: What was your initial reaction when you first read the memo?

A: The initial reaction was, you have a moment of panic and concern, and then take a deep breath and figure out, what do we know? What do we not know? What can we control? And move forward from there.

Q: As of right now, what do you know? 

A: Not a lot. I don’t think a lot of people do. It’s a very broad memo that has a couple of footnotes that don’t really clarify that much except for it doesn’t apply to Medicare and Social Security. That’s about all we know. We know our grant funds are frozen at the moment. But we also know that we have enough private match and reserve dollars that, for us, it’s business as usual in the short term.

Q: How has this grant money traditionally been used in the past?

A: The huge bulk of it is used for Double-A Oklahoma, which matches SNAP dollars, dollar for dollar, in more than 30 grocery stores across the state to help them purchase fresh produce. So, up to $20 each trip, we issue a benefit. As you can imagine, that takes a lot of money. 

Right now, it’s actually about $500,000 in benefits that go directly to folks. The other federal dollars pay for a lot of staff to help families enroll in SNAP benefits.

Q: Roughly how many people would be affected if this freeze were to remain for the unseeable future? 

A: Just for our program, there would be over 100,000 people. And over time, there’s more people. 

Q: What is your message to those who rely on Hunger Free Oklahoma for support?

A: Don’t panic yet. Wait for the acts to come through before you take action. And continue to rely on information sources.

Mark Smith, CEO of Housing Solutions

Q: Was there uncertainty after the memo came out?

A: I think so because, it’s hard to see what the time frame is and when this review will be completed, and when funds will start flowing again.

Q: How much do you guys rely on the federal government for grants?

A: Housing Solutions is lucky. We do have some federal funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as SAMHSA. We also have private funding where we have many many gracious donors. So we have a mix.

Q: What is your message to those who rely on Housing Solutions for support?

A: This isn’t impacting Housing Solutions. We’re working with the Way Home for Tulsa partners to understand their impact. Right now, we don’t have any direct impact on services or programs. If that’s going to change, we’ll relay that to the community.

This is what Tulsa does all the time. Tulsa is an incredible community that comes together to face big problems. We’ve weathered storms like this before, and I think Tulsa will do so again.